Card-Sales Response to Merchant Contactless Payment Acceptance: Causal Evidence.

Summary Disruptive innovations in digital payments are happening in a large number of countries around the world. While consumers may access to a wide variety of payment technologies, a natural question arises: does accepting a new payment technology allow merchants to increase their business sales? Using matching and difference-indifference techniques on a unique sample of about 275,580 merchants in France, we find that accepting contactless payments in 2018 increases on average the card-sales amount by 17 percent (and by 20 percent the card-sales count) compared to merchants who do not accept con-tactless payments. We also find evidence that accepting contactless payments exerts a positive spillover of about 3 percent in the amount of contact card sales, and is also more profitable for small merchants and new entrepreneurs.